Louis Theroux: Behind Bars

The journalist spends several days inside San Quentin State Prison, one of the United States’ most notorious correctional facilities. There he discovers that the prisoners have fashioned an entire sub‑culture, complete with a brutal code of conduct that governs daily life behind bars.

Louis Theroux: Behind Bars is a one‑off television programme that follows the journalist as he steps inside an American penitentiary. The broadcast is presented as a self‑contained documentary, offering viewers a glimpse into a correctional setting that most people only hear about from the outside. In the heart of the film, the journalist spends an extended period at San Quentin State Prison – a facility that’s earned a reputation for being one of the United States’ most notorious prisons. While there, he observes how the prisoners have fashioned a distinct micro‑society, complete with its own internal rules and a harsh, uncompromising code of conduct that governs daily life behind the walls. The series highlights the way inmates enforce this brutal code, showing how a self‑imposed order emerges in an environment cut off from conventional authority. By documenting these interactions, the programme paints a picture of a world that operates on its own terms, revealing the stark realities of life inside a prison where the inmates themselves dictate the rules.